For Emergency Use Only
by xbleeple
Summary: Such interesting things can happen on the shoulder of a highway. [Bit of Shack/Bit of Shandy]


**Notes:** Another random piece I've had floating around in my brain since **Still Lost in Translation** wrote a little blip about Ricky's arrival. Enjoy!

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Sharon sighs as she makes another pass behind the couch, her hand rubbing along her lower back. She'd been having Braxton Hicks contractions for the last few weeks on and off, but earlier in the morning they'd become much more regular and were happening closer together. After talking to the doctor she'd been assured that she didn't need to come to the hospital right away and to keep track of the timing.

Emily had quickly grown tired of her mother's pacing of the living room, demanding that she sit down and watch the 'moobie' that had been put on. Sharon had acquiesced to her daughter's demand and took a seat on the couch next to her, watching the last forty five minutes of Sleeping Beauty for the thousandth time. By the time the movie was over Emily was curled up on the other side of the couch fast asleep and Sharon resumed her pacing of the house to ease her discomfort.

It was around lunch time that Sharon decided to call Jack and see if he could come home early from work. The secretary at the small law firm he was working at told her that he was out to lunch and she could leave a message for him. She sighed and agreed, asking the woman to make sure it was noted that it was an emergency and she needed him to call her back right away.

By two she still hadn't heard back from him and was in enough pain and discomfort to consider getting in the car with Emily and going to the hospital herself. Another call to the firm had confirmed that Jack hadn't returned yet and Sharon left a rather tersely worded message with the secretary before calling Emily up off of the floor and telling her to go get dressed.

"Whea we goin?" Emily asks as she trots down the short hall of their small two bedroom apartment. They were in the process of closing on their new house and Sharon had hoped they would be able to move in by the time the baby arrived, but it didn't seem that time was on their side.

"We are going to go to the hospital," Sharon tells her as she bites back a groan from a particularly painful contraction, heading into her own room. How had she not thought about packing anything for the hospital until now?

"Why hoppital?" Emily inquires as she stands in the doorway of the master bedroom and watches her mother rustle through the dresser.

"Because your brother is on his way," Sharon explains simply, pulling out a couple night gowns, "Go get dressed."

"I don't want a brother," Emily whines and stomps her foot.

"Emily, we are not doing this right now," Sharon sighs as she turns to look at her daughter. She'd been incensed at the idea of having a brother ever since they found out that they were having a boy, "Please, just go get dressed."

"Don't wanna."

"Emily Eileen…" Sharon narrows her eyes as her tone leaves no wiggle room. Emily's bottom lip quivers and her wide deep hazel eyes fill with tears, "Emmy come on, I know you are not thrilled with having a brother, but Momma really needs you to go get dressed so we can go to the hospital."

Sharon sighs when Emily bursts into tears and starts to head into a full blown tantrum. It takes her close to an hour to calm the girl down and get her dressed in some semblance of an actual outfit before getting changed herself and throwing a rushed hospital bag together. By the time they were together a sweat had broken out across Sharon's brow and she was questioning her decision to not call an ambulance. Emily manages to get her shoes on relatively quickly, looking up as the door to the apartment opens while she pushes herself onto her feet.

"Daddy!" Emily jumps and runs over to wrap her arms around Jack's leg.

"Hi sweet pea!" Jack replies as he leans down to pick her up.

"Where have you been?" Sharon seethes, "I called you at noon."

"Lunch meeting ran over," Jack says easily, "I just got your message. I'm assuming the little man is on his way?"

"What would possibly give you that idea?" She bites back as she tries to avoid digging her nails into the drywall. Jack sighs and reaches out to grab the bag from her hand, holding the door open for her before the three of them make their way down to the car. He buckles Emily in the back and puts Sharon's bag next to her before holding the door open for his wife. Her eyes flash at him as she drops heavily down into the passenger seat, "A three hour lunch meeting?"

"Sharon…" Sharon shakes her head and lets out a whimper as she grabs onto her stomach. Jack shuts the door and makes his way around to the driver's side, getting in and starting the car. They start to make their way across the city to Cedars where Sharon's doctor was, her sounds getting more desperate as they sit in the beginnings of rush hour traffic.

The traffic on the 10 was particularly backed up for that time in the afternoon and Jack was sure Sharon was on her way to drawing blood with how hard she was clutching onto his arm and desperately repeating the word 'no' over and over. It takes him a moment to notice when her mantra of 'no' changes to telling him that he needed to pull over,

"We're almost there," Jack assures her. It was true, they were only three exits away from where they needed to get off but there seemed to be an accident or something else causing quite the traffic jam, they'd only moved a few car lengths in 10 minutes.

"You need to pull over, NOW!" Sharon yells, letting out a loud cry, "He is not waiting!"

"Well hold him in!"

"I can't!" Sharon lashes out and smacks him in the chest, grabbing onto his shirt, "PULL THE CAR OVER!"

Jack manages to squeeze their car through two lanes of traffic to pull over on the shoulder. He puts the car in park and throws his door open to go around to Sharon's side. He pulls the door open and she flings her seatbelt off. Her hand lashes out and she grabs onto her husband, letting out a loud cry as her water breaks.

"This is not happeningggggg!" Sharon begs.

A few cars back an off duty police officer lifts his head from his hand as he hears a woman scream through his rolled down window. He leans over and notices the car pulled off to the side and the drivers side door open. He pulls his car off behind them when he gets a few more inches, turning his lights on and flashing his siren once to alert them to his presence.

"Thank God," Jack breathes.

"Oh no," Sharon cries. The last thing she needed was someone she knew from work sitting between her legs as she gave birth to her son on the side of the interstate. A few moments later she hears an unfamiliar voice ask what was going on. Jack explains the situation to him and he tells them to hold tight for a moment as he goes back to his car, radioing for an ambulance and getting a first aid kit out of the trunk before returning.

"I radioed dispatch for an ambulance. It'll probably take a bit in this traffic," He points out as he rolls up the sleeves of his button down shirt and kneels down next to the car, "Otherwise it's just us."

"Oh great, I feel _so_ much better," Sharon groans.

"Your name is Sharon, right? I'm Andy," He introduces, "And it sounds like we're going to be pretty close for the next few minutes."

"How do you know what it sounds like?" God, her tongue was loose and there was no reining it back in until the pain stopped.

"Let's just say I had quite a few patrol shifts that ended this way," Andy grins and pulls out the latex gloves that were in the first aid kit, putting them on before looking up at Sharon, "Can you turn towards me?"

"No," Sharon shakes her head furiously. She felt like any movement on her part what so ever was going to cause the baby to fall right out of her.

"Kid's coming out regardless," Andy tells her, "It's going to go a little easier if I can see what I'm doing."

"Easier for who?" Sharon snaps as she lets out a yell before starting to pivot to hang her legs out of the car and face the officer that was helping them. She cries out as she lifts her hips to turn, immediately starting to bear down, "Oh my god!"

It only takes a couple of hard pushes before Andy is holding the squalling baby in his hands. He looks up at Jack and asks for a towel or a blanket, suppressing a roll of his eyes as Jack fumbles before unbuttoning his dress shirt and offering it to Andy. He expertly wraps the baby up and hands him to Sharon with a reassuring smile.

"Seems quite healthy to me."

"Oh yes you are, aren't you?" Sharon smiles tiredly as she wraps her son in the crook of her arm and uses one of the loose sleeves to wipe of his face, "Hi there handsome…"

Andy tidies up everything as best he can before he hears the sirens of the ambulance in the distance. He snaps off the gloves he'd had on before standing, "I'm going to go flag them down so we can get you guys off to the hospital."

"Thank you," Sharon says as she looks up from the baby and offers Andy a thankful smile before dropping her attention back down. Emily was hanging over her shoulder, already fawning over her baby brother and how adorable he was. Her eyes are drawn to a stain on the collar of Jack's shirt as she looks at her son. The entire shirt was covered in blood and afterbirth now, and was most likely unsalvageable, but there was one stain that didn't fit in with the rest - a bright, pink lipstick stain. It wasn't a shade that she had ever worn or owned, and one that she could immediately remember seeing on one of the interns her husband worked closely with, having only met the girl for the first time a few days before.

Sharon folds the collar back out of her sight and glares at Jack as he puts a hand on her knee as he squats next to the car. He opens his mouth to speak but is cut off by the sirens of the ambulance getting closer and the paramedics quickly rushing over to them. She and the baby are quickly loaded onto a stretcher and put into the back of the ambulance, the medics telling Jack that they were going to Cedars. By the time he made it to the hospital with Emily, Sharon and the baby had been cleaned up and checked over before being assigned to a room. She was nursing him when the came in, a content smile on her face as the boy held onto her finger while he ate.

"That was quite the eventful entrance," Jack comments as he lifts Emily onto the bed so she can sit next to her mother, "We need to think of a name for the little guy."

"Richard," Sharon comments as she looks away from the baby, "His name is Richard."

"I thought we…"

"Ricky for short," She powers on, "I think it fits him."

"Right," Jack sighs and shakes his head.

"And I'm sure your intern could help you find a new shirt, though it might be a change for her. Putting it on instead of taking it off…" Sharon replies with a thin tone, arching her eyebrow at Jack, begging for him to argue with her. To tell her it wasn't true. To fight for their marriage, for her instead of against her. Instead he bows his head and retreats from her hospital room.

A month later her bank account was empty and her husband was gone, leaving her and their children under the debt of the new house they had just moved into. Two days later she dropped Ricky and Emily off at the department's daycare, dressed in her uniform to take on a double shift four weeks before she was supposed to be at work again.

It was five years before she saw Andy next, this time reprimanding him for use of force when apprehending a suspect. She saw the recognition in his eyes when she had walked up to him, before his eyes narrowed when he realized what she was there for. She wasn't coming to thank him years after the fact, she was there to yell at him.

They never spoke of that first time they actually met each other until many years later when the squalling baby delivered on the side of the highway had grown into quite an accomplished young man with a knack for hurting his mother's feelings just like his father had. Andy listened quietly as his boss and friend ranted and raved about how her older son was behaving about her adopting the younger one that she had taken in.

"And to think, we could have just left him on the side of the highway," Andy deadpanned before taking a sip of the tea that she had made him. He watched as it took her a moment to process his comment before she burst into a fit of laughter, the first sign of happiness he had gotten out of her since they had gotten back to the condo and she'd begun to unload about her issues with the boys.

"Oh my goodness!" Sharon laughs and sinks back in her chair, "I haven't laughed about that in a long time."

"You definitely weren't laughing that day."

"No, no, I definitely wasn't," Sharon shakes her head with one last chuckle before looking down into her tea cup, "It was his fault you know?"

"Ricky's?"

"No, Jack's," Sharon rolls her eyes before looking back up, "I'd started calling the office at lunch. Secretary said he was out…and he was, just not at lunch. He didn't get home until a few hours after my first call and we lived on the other side of town at the time, but my doctor was at Cedars. I was already in so much pain I didn't notice the lipstick stain on his collar until Ricky was bundled up in his shirt. He left for the first time a month later. Jack always acted like he wanted the perfect life, a home, a family, the white picket fence, but each time we took a step towards those things, our relationship got worse. By the time the kids were in school, I was the _boring_ option…"

"You, Sharon Raydor, are very far from boring," Andy interrupts and smiles as he sees a small smile turn her lips upward and a faint blush color her cheeks.

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[End]


End file.
